Five Things in Atlantis
by Holdur
Summary: A collection of ficlets written for the sg1-5-things comm on livejournal. New: Five things Chuck ate in the Pegasus galaxy that he couldn't pronounce.
1. 5 people from SGC Stolen for Atlantis

A place to collect the stories written for the sg1-5-things community on livejournal

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**Five People From the SGC John Would Sometimes Like to Steal for Atlantis**

1. On the days when Rodney is being particularly difficult, John daydreams that he's Bill Lee. Doctor Lee is easily distracted by WOW, doesn't ask the natives what's in the food and would follow John's orders without any additional snark. Then Rodney babbles his way to a last minute genius plan and John remembers that he's seen Lee with a gun and it's a travesty to the beauty of hand directed firearms. Plus, following orders is overrated, not to mention more than a little hypocritical coming from him. Best to keep Rodney where he can see him anyway.

2. On his second year in Atlantis, John wonders what it'd be like to have someone from the IOA in charge. Not that he'd ever let them take away Elizabeth, but he thinks that if someone like Woolsey were at the helm—someone to see what it was like out on the frontier and send word back to his cronies—John's life would become a whole lot simpler. See the job; do the job.

His fifth year becomes the very definition of ironic, something John doesn't find amusing at all. It isn't simple, either.

3. Rodney spends so much time talking about Samantha Carter that John starts wishing she would visit, just so he can be there when she tells him to shut up. Then she is and she does and it's every bit as awesome as he knew it would be. When it's time for her to leave, he tells her to come back again soon and she knows exactly what he means by it.

4. John asks Walter to come to Atlantis twice a year. Walter always says no, but John thinks that's probably Landry speaking, so he keeps asking. He even tells him he'd get his paperwork in on time. Walter smiles in a way that says he knows John's well intentioned, but a complete liar and John leaves him alone for another six months.

5. John writes a letter to General O'Neill every week for the first year, asking him to take over the military leadership of Atlantis. His job is supposed to be resident gene carrier, not explorer extraordinaire, and he'd like to get back to it. Not that he doesn't like the exploring, or his teammates. Not that he doesn't have some mistakes to rectify.

When O'Neill finally does get to Atlantis and John is sent back to Earth, he deletes those files and starts writing daily letters to Landry. Atlantis is his city after all. He belongs there.


	2. 5 secrets Lorne and Zelenka share

**Five Secrets Lorne and Zelenka Share**

1.

When Lorne arrives in Atlantis, the sudden noise in his head is so distracting that he lives in a half daze for weeks until he accidentally walks into a slight, mousy man in glasses. Scientist, he thinks. Ever since his job description became babysitter, he'd developed a sixth sense for scientists, like those dogs that sniff out drugs and chocolate. The man takes one look at him and grimaces.

"New gene carrier," he says. It's not really a question, but Lorne knows enough scientists to know that it should be.

"Yeah," Lorne answers. He rubs at his temples to try and shake loose some of the static in his head and forgets what he was about to say.

"Follow me," the man says and doesn't wait for him to answer but grabs him by the elbow and drags him along.

They end up in what Lorne thinks is the very bottom of the city, somewhere dark and a little wet. It's a space in the city without the city, full of water pipes and ventilation and power conduits and devoid of any ancient technology to buzz in Lorne's mind. He closes his eyes to breathe in the silence and when he opens them again, his scientist is disappearing down the hall, checking the wires and muttering in a language Lorne doesn't know.

Lorne needs to resurface soon, but he comes back often, whenever the city makes it hard to think. Usually he is alone, but sometimes he sees Zelenka moving through the mechanical parts of the city. When he passes Lorne, they nod to each other once and are silent.

2.

Two months later, Zelenka is offworld for the first time and Lorne gets angry when the other marines smirk and hide snickers behind coughs when he jumps at small noises. The marines won't admit it, but Lorne knows that just because the fear of stepping onto a new world and the nausea from gate travel is mitigated by training and experience doesn't mean they don't still exist.

Back on Atlantis, Lorne types up two pamphlets for offworld survival and gate travel. He illustrates them cartoon style, so Zelenka knows they aren't meant as mockery, and leaves them under Zelenka's keyboard on his desk. The next time Zelenka's offworld, Lorne catches him keeping an eye out for his assigned marine (Hint #2: The Buddy System) and when it turns out that the natives don't like strangers and Lorne signals them to fall back to the gate, it's Zelenka who passes the message to the other two scientists who weren't looking (Hint #7: Military Hand Signals Explained).

The mission reports that land on Sheppard's desk commend Zelenka as a model scientist when offworld and the marines stop complaining that the scientists don't understand the concept of self-preservation.

Lorne figures out why when his team is assigned to babysit a new botanist offworld. He's waiting for them at the edge of the gate and Lorne can see that he's buzzing with nerves. He has a crumpled piece of paper clutched in his hand, the edges of a cartoon Stargate peeking through his fingers. Above in the control room, Zelenka smiles at him slowly and blinks once.

3.

One day he wakes up to an email from McKay in his inbox, telling him to find Zelenka the next time he gets a midnight urge for some science. Lorne never does figure that one out, but since it's the only email of its kind and Lorne is sure he has never wanted to talk physics with McKay at any time, he shrugs it off as an anomaly and hits delete.

It must have sparked something though, because a week later he has a weird dream where he shows up at Zelenka's lab in the middle of the night to ask him why a duck's quack doesn't echo and two nights after that he dreams that he meets Zelenka while wandering through the science labs and he wants to know why test tubes are made of glass.

Zelenka tells him there's a glitch in the sensors in his room and spends some time tinkering in Lorne's doorway. After that, Lorne stops dreaming that he meets Zelenka in the science labs and starts dreaming that he shows up while Lorne walks through the city barefoot; in the mess hall, the transporters, the dark space where it is quiet. They walk together back to Lorne's quarters and when he wakes up those mornings, he always feels tired.

4.

Everyone talks to the city shrink. Weir made it a requirement after the expedition was a month old and Carter knows a good idea when she sees one. The saner members go once a month, the crazy ones go once a week and the new arrivals go every day until the culture shock wears off. However often it is for Zelenka, Lorne decides it clearly isn't enough when he's walking through the halls and suddenly a hand grabs his jacket and yanks him sideways.

When the world rights itself, he's faced with a very angry Zelenka and before he can ask what the hell is going on, he's hit with a stream of Czech that's so fast it sounds like gibberish. Zelenka is making hand motions that are eerily reminiscent of McKay, so Lorne decides to let him talk and makes commiserative noises when he pauses to breathe.

It happens again the next week and it makes Lorne wonder what it is that McKay is doing to the poor man and whether he does it purposefully. He doesn't really mind though, because this time he has a rant of his own brewing and it turns out to be extremely relaxing to let it out to someone who isn't going to ask how he feels and whether he thinks he needs to work on his coping strategies.

It becomes a regular thing and Lorne comes to expect being pulled away. Zelenka never does speak English, but Lorne learns to judge his agitation by the fluency of his language and whether he needs to be yelled at or listened to.

5.

Lorne should have known really. No one knows the city like the scientists who keep her running, so when Lorne finds a hidden balcony away from the lights that's perfect for stargazing, it doesn't surprise him to see Zelenka already there. He's on his back with a life signs detector by his knee, which explains why he doesn't even look up to see who has interrupted him.

"I'm looking for Earth," he says. Lorne lies himself down next to Zelenka and doesn't say anything. He looks for Earth more than he likes to admit, in the scant factual information from the Ancient database, standing under a holographic sky with Earth glowing green, in the small windshield of the puddlejumpers.

"Second star to the right and straight on till morning," he says at last. Zelenka lets out a huff of breath that might be a laugh.

Lorne starts talking because he needs to say something, so he tells Zelenka about a little boy and how when Lorne left he was gaptoothed where he'd lost his two front teeth falling off a slide though he isn't anymore, it's been three years. Then there is only silence stretching in all directions around them.

"I left someone on Earth," Zelenka says. Lorne lets himself shift a little closer because didn't everyone? "I shouldn't have." Not many of the expedition think it and Lorne knows of only a handful who admit it and of those, none who stay.

"If Atlantis were safe…" Zelenka starts, then shakes his head and snaps his mouth shut.

Lorne already knows the rest of the sentence. He isn't one who admits it, but he thinks of it with increasing regularity: about backyards and how little boys grow up fast. Out of the corner of his eye, Zelenka has fallen asleep. Lorne stays awake and looks for Earth.


	3. 5 ways SGA Misplaced a Team member

**Five Ways SGA "Misplaced" a Team Member**

The first time it happened, it was an honest to god mistake. John dialed the gate and followed Teyla and Ronan through, with Rodney right behind him muttering in his ear, except that Rodney wasn't really behind him because he never did come through the other side. Elizabeth redialed and John's mind retold the story of Teal'c stuck in the wormhole and told him now was as good a time as any for panic. Turned out, Rodney had never left. They found him sitting crosslegged on the steps to the side of the gate with his computer in his lap.

"Are we going yet?" he asked as they approached and, since Rodney hadn't even realized he was missing, John decided this one didn't count.

The second time (the first really, since the actual first didn't count) it might have possibly been the slightest bit intentional. Rodney was complaining about his feet again and if John heard one more sentence he was going to do something he'd regret, so he rolled his eyes and walked away, quickly and with stealth. He knew Rodney wouldn't notice or keep up if he did, so he stopped when Rodney was on the edge of earshot and waited.

He didn't expect it to take an hour, but Rodney ranted loudly the whole time so John knew he wasn't in any danger. Rodney spent the next week threatening dire revenge, but he wasn't talking about his feet, so John called it a win.

The third time was Ronan's idea. They were exploring ancient underground ruins and for the first and probably last time, Rodney went down first. John was about to follow when Ronan stopped him, a finger on his lips. Beside him Teyla was bemused but silent. He pulled them a few feet back from the entrance and they waited until suddenly Rodney shrieked like a girl and their radios stuttered frantically to life. John thought that was probably time to give it up, but Ronan held him back. Ten minutes later, Rodney's head popped out of the ground and he could see his teammates three feet away.

"Thank god the Wraith didn't get you," he gasped as he dangled, "Now I can kill you myself."

The fourth time, John was deliberate. Rodney stepped into the transporter and John asked Atlantis to send him somewhere unknown. Atlantis, enamored with John as she was, did, and then shut down the power to the transporter to keep him there. John waited the appropriate amount of time then reported him missing to Carter and asked Teyla to organize the search party. Naturally, John would have gone himself but they were on their way out on a very time sensitive mission that couldn't wait. He grabbed Zelenka and Lorne instead and went to blow up the Wraith. When they returned, Rodney was waiting for him.

"Are you _trying_ to lose me?" he asked.

"Not you this time," John said. Rodney was quiet for a moment then understanding spread across his face.

"Oh, you mean…" His hands waved vaguely near his stomach, like he couldn't quite bring himself to say it.

"Well, I guess that's all right then," he said, so John lost him three more times before Teyla disappeared.

The fifth time was John's turn.

They left him on a desert planet, simply disappeared before him. John wasn't sure how that could be possible, but it obviously wasn't the Wraith, so he poked carefully at the ground they were on, then turned around to trudge back to the Stargate. They were waiting for him under the shade of a tarp, drinking what looked to be lemonade. Rodney was nearly white with sunscreen and Ronan was wearing sunglasses and looking cooler than John ever could. Rodney smirked and flipped a small badge of technology at him, carefully tagged and labeled "Transporter" in Rodney's scrawl. John had to admit, that was cool enough to be worth it. Plus, he added to himself, he probably deserved it.


	4. 4 kisses that weren't real, 1 that was

**Four kisses that weren't real and one that was**

First was a woman wearing the colors of a scientist who launched herself into his arms when the city rose and kissed him fully and quickly, then spun away with a breathless laugh to the next person within reach; it was the celebration of not dying and it didn't mean anything.

Next it was Cadman, except it was really Rodney and if that wasn't the best indication of a brief and wildly erratic relationship, he didn't know what was.

Then it _was_ Cadman, up against a wall, under his desk, hidden away in a supply closet, full of a fire that reminded him that she was a soldier who liked to blow things up and he was a doctor who put them back together again.

After that it was his mother and she kissed him on both cheeks and both eyelids and once each on his nose and lips and that didn't count either because it was his mother and mothers were supposed to kiss their children after they returned from the dead.

Finally it was the girl across the hall who kissed soft and a little scared and he felt his own heart thumping in response, though he wondered how that could be when it took nothing less than the Wraith and guiding a flying city between galaxies to scare him anymore.


	5. 5 things Chuck ate he couldn't pronounce

**Five Things Chuck ate in the Pegasus galaxy that he can't pronounce**

Chuck only goes offworld once. There's a trading mission that needs someone technically savvy and Zelenka and his team are too busy extracting McKay from a Wraith dart. Weir looks out from the door of her office with a blank look that says "Who here is smart?" and the first person she looks at is Chuck. She flaps her hand at him and he grins and runs to suit up, all the while bragging to his friend in anthropology over the radio that he'll be going offworld and doesn't that just make you sick with jealousy?

It turns out that offworld missions aren't all they're cracked up to be. Chuck has had the cultural appreciation lecture the same as everyone, but it turns out brokering a successful trade negotiation involves things like standing in the back of the room, apologizing for accidentally proposing to the chief's daughter through unintended eye contact and eating the food.

They pass him a tray cut into five sections and tell him it's the traditional meal of peaceful contact between two people and then rattle off a string of words that sounds to Chuck like someone speaking Welsh through a mouthful of cotton with an extra click at the end for emphasis and a series of structured gestures that Chuck doesn't try to imitate for fear of smacking Stevens in the face instead.

Chuck decides to call his meal Red, Orange, Yellow, Green and Blue, because that's what they are and brightly so. He hesitantly samples Red, eyes widening when it turns out the only thing he can think to describe it is Red, then takes a quick bite of each of the other four. He pushes the tray to Stevens with a hissed "Taste the rainbow" then scurries outside where he can let his laughter bubble up without endangering the peace.

When they return to Atlantis, he informs Weir that he's perfectly happy with his current responsibilities and if she ever needs an extra body on an away team, he knows someone in anthropology who actually likes freeze pops and would jump at the chance.


End file.
